Each of us has at least four ounces of it in the tissues of our bodies. It is vital for all life on earth and has uses almost beyond counting. Salt, once literally worth its weight in gold, forms some amazing shapes when sculpted. Deep inside Poland is an old salt mine at Weiliczka, where miners, over many years, tried their best to humanize the underground environment by creating stunning artworks wherever they could find room.
Their craft and artistry has left the world with an amazing glimpse into the hearts and minds of the sculptors, religious men who seemed determined to thank God for their continued survival as much as they possibly could. Salt was always a valuable resource. Ancient Greek slaves really were bought and sold for it, and indeed this practice gave rise to the saying, ‘Not worth his salt’.
Roman emperors sometimes paid soldiers with it, giving rise to the word ‘salary’. In Ethiopia, salt bars were once used as currency, and salt was money in both Borneo and Tibet! Europeans have mined salt for centuries, and this mine near Krakow is now a very popular tourist site because of the amazing sculptures within it. A complete cathedral carved out of the salt is just the beginning!
Early Chinese coins were made of it, and French emperor Napoleon retreated from the Russian front, in 1812, because he hadn’t enough for his troops and horses. Taxes on salt were a major contributing factor to the French Revolution. The twentieth century saw the peaceful protests in India, by followers of Mahatma Ghandi, against the British ‘salt tax’.
Estimates put the amount of salt in the oceans at 26 million tons per cubic kilometre. If all the seas dried up tomorrow, a layer of salt 50 metres thick would cover the entire planet! For those among you who are religious, there are over 30 references to salt in the Bible. Jesus called his disciples ‘the salt of the earth’, and ‘Holy salt’ does indeed represent purity in the teachings of the Unification Church. At Roman Catholic baptisms, grains of salt are placed on the child’s tongue, symbolic of the words of the Lord.
ROCK SALT CHANDELIER
In March 1998, a meteorite discovered in Texas, USA, was found to contain the largest salt crystals ever seen in an object from space. Over 4.5 billion years old, they existed possibly even before our own planet. Salt is truly universal, without a doubt.
Next time you pick up that saltcellar, you might reflect that the contents are more valuable to your life than precious metals. You could not live without it, and once you might have been sold into slavery for just a few ounces. The salt of the earth. White gold. That was what the Polish miners were digging out in their daily toil, but the legacy they left behind, of incredible salt sculptures, could in some ways be worth far more.
